Beyond The Blue Mountains - Plaidy Jean (читать книги бесплатно полностью без регистрации сокращений .txt) 📗

“That is an invitation I cannot refuse.”

“Jin. Bring out that bottle.”

Jin came sullenly, and Margery made her pout it out for them.

Margery smacked her lips.

“Good stuff, eh?”

“You know how to get the best out of life, Margery!”

Now what did that mean? Who knew what she would be saying to the master? Queer things women would say to men in bed o’ nights. Margery touched Carolan’s breast with a caressing finger.

“Now don’t you too, me love?”

Carolan laughed falsely. They were suspicious of each other. Sly smiles on Margery’s lips. Admiration, envy, excitement to have the girl sitting so close. You couldn’t help your thoughts, now could you? And for all his funny ways, he was a fine figure of a man. And to think of her ladyship, going with him out of pique for, not being born yesterday, Margery knew, sure as fate, that it was the other one she wanted. To use the master like that! The master! It was the best thing she had heard for years. And here was the girl, sitting right next to her, her lovely body close, the body the master was in love with! It made you feel funny, no mistake!

That slyness, thought Carolan, that knowledgeable slyness. How can she see? What is she thinking? She knows so much. It may be that she sees what I cannot. They were very friendly with each other, almost ingratiatingly so.

“Things ain’t what they was. with you out of me kitchen, dearie.”

“I shall often come down for a chat like this.”

“And how do you like sleeping in a nice feather bed?” .Hot colour ran up under the girl’s cheeks. Margery had a vision of her going in to the master. No, of the master’s going in to her; she would see to that! Margery could have rocked with laughter.

“It is very comfortable, of course.”

Margery nudged her.

‘ “Course it’s comfortable!”

Poll came in eventually with the water.

“Carry it up,” said Carolan.

There she was. giving orders in Margery’s kitchen! Carry it up yourself, me lady, is what she ought to be told. But how can you say such things to a girl what’s got the master where she wants him? And that in a house where the mistress goes foe nothing!

Poll went up with the cans; Carolan followed. Margery stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching.

“Knock at the door,” said Carolan, ‘and tell the mistress her bath is ready.”

“What!” said Poll.

“Knock at the door, I said.”

“What, me!”

Carolan went across the toilet-room. She knocked at the door, listened for Lucille’s sleepy “Come in,” then opened the door and pushed Poll in.

Lucille looked up. Poll stared at the woman in the bed; at the luxury around her.

If… yes?” said Lucille.

“Bath’s ready!” said Poll, and fled.

A few minutes later Carolan went in.

“Your bath is ready.”

“Yes. A… that girl told me.”

“Poor Poll! She’s a sad wretch, do you not think so?”

“Dreadful.”

“More than a little crazy.” Carolan smoothed the silk coverlet angrily.

“Newgate! Transportation! They can be terrible experiences; none knows how terrible unless experienced.”

“Carolan, my wrap please.”

“She was sentenced for murder. She murdered her baby. Foot Poll!” Carolan arranged the wrap round Lucille’s shoulders.

“Why, you are shivering! It has turned quite chilly. Come now … while the water is hot.”

Her room was just above Lucille’s - a small room with a feather bed. If Lucille needed her in the night, she could knock on the ceiling with a long stick. She never did.

He came some nights. Carolan would lie listening for his step. He would knock lightly, and she would be at the door, opening it swiftly and letting him in. Sometimes this stealth amused her; sometimes it disgusted her. She seemed to be full of inconsistencies these days. Sometimes she saw herself as a scheming woman, a woman who has suffered much and is determined to lie on a feather bed for the rest of her days. Wild thoughts came into her head when she was in that mood plans and schemes. But there were other times when she saw herself differently. She had gone to Masterman, she believed then because she had known Marcus must marry Esther, and only when she had taken her determined steps away from Marcus could she bear to give him up. Perhaps she did scheme; perhaps she had made a great sacrifice; she was not entirely sure. But whatever had been that primary motive, her feet were now firmly set upon the road she must take. That was why, if he stayed away for more than two nights, she grew frightened. Once he was with her, he was completely hers, and she could do with him as she wished. But when he left her she was afraid; she, who had made so many false steps, was afraid of making more. Love between them was to her intensely exciting, and his very shame in their relationship added a piquancy for her. But she was afraid always that one day he would say he was going away, perhaps to work on one of the stations for awhile, where he could avoid her attraction. It was exciting to know that he had meant to talk of ending their relationship, and to lure him into complete surrender, to make him admit that he would face anything rather than miss this happiness. There was power; in all but his desire for her, he was the strong man; that made his downfall more gratifying, that in itself made her enjoy these months, made her hold her head high, made her heart glad even when she heard of the birth of Esther’s son.

He would lie in her arms, this master of men. and talk a little. She was sure he had never talked to anyone else as he talked to her. He wanted her, not only as bedfellow, but as companion to hear about his ambitions, to listen to the stories of early struggles. She was determined to be everything to him, to strengthen the bonds about him.

He was a strange man cold and passionate: sometimes she felt she hardly knew him; at others he seemed as simple as a child; and ambition and idealism were the keystones of his character. He spoke shyly of his dreams. Himself and his family a big family, a family of boys to cultivate this land which he loved with a passion that, until he had met Carolan, he had bestowed on nothing else; girls to breed more men to cultivate the glorious land. That was what he had wanted. Himself a man of importance in the town, Governor perhaps; though it was hardly likely that the government at home would approve of that.

He grew excited, talking of his adopted country. He liked to think of the arrival of the first fleet.

“Eleven ships, Carolan! Only that … to start a new world! What a glorious moment it must have been when they sighted land!”

Carolan thought of the convicts, battened down under the hatches, and she was silent.

“And Phillip… that great man… I like to think of his sailing into Botany Bay that great wide-open bay and turning from it into our own Sydney Cove.

“The finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security.” It is the finest harbour in the world. Why should not this be the finest country? In years to come people will remember that it was men such as I who made this new world. Pioneers who left the home country to start a new life. Men like Phillip, that great genius, men who with small worldly goods, but great courage, set out to open up this great new world of the South.”

He was lyrical about the place. When his enthusiasms were roused they were prodigious. His love for her, his desire for children, his love of his adopted country all were the enthusiasms of a strong man.

And below lay that useless woman, that selfish woman who had denied him his dearest wishes.

Carolan was waiting for him now. Tonight she must be seductive, cautious and wise, for much was at stake. Tonight she was fighting not for herself alone.

The mirror told her she was beautiful. There was a new softness in her eyes, and a new fierceness too. A tigress at bay, preparing her lair.